Live from New York

One of the perks of working at Brookhaven National Lab is the proximity to New York City.  We can hop on a train and get to Penn Station in Manhattan in an hour and twenty minutes (well… more like two hours this particular trip, largely thanks to someone who got arrested on board).  This trip centered around dear friend and ACU alum Lyndsey Goode, who has been a stage manager in New York City for quite some time.  With last-minute tickets and heroic babysitting we were able to see her current project, This Wide Night, as a desperate eight block dash got us to the theater two minutes before curtain.

The play was an intelligent, moving, and deeply psychological study of two women recently released from prison.  The entire show takes place in a brilliantly set shabby studio apartment, providing the backdrop for themes of brokenness and nearly impossible attempts of reconciliation.  The writing is such that this play rests entirely on the ability of the actors.  With lesser talents this could potentially devolve to be insurmountably slow-moving and dreary.  Fortunately this was not the case.  The acting was phenomenal with two of the highest caliber actors I have ever seen on stage: Edie Falco (yes, from the Sopranos) and Alison Pill.  (For a nice bonus win, this NYT review starts off with Einstein and the laws of physics.)  A truly remarkable experience overall.  Tomorrow is the last performance of the show, though it seems likely that it will be picked up for Broadway in the near future.

I didn’t intend to write a review of the show, instead I’m merely trying to convey the experience of temporarily leaving Abilene to work in New York.  As I’m off to Washington D.C. next week for a physics workshop (along with Dr. Head and Dr. Willis), I’ll be finding a few students to write about their own experiences of research labs in different parts of the country.  Assuming, of course, the 600 mile round-trip drive through the Northeast with two small children doesn’t kill me first.  Onward ho!

-Dr. D